The U.S. House of Representatives voted against two Washington, D.C., laws aimed to end “reproductive discrimination” in employment. The measures ban discrimination over employees’ reproductive decisions, for example, a Catholic institution firing an employee for receiving an abortion. House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), called the bill “an outrageous intrusion into workers’ personal lives,” according to The Washington Post. Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH), said, “The issue is one of religious liberty.”

Though the House’s decision will now have to pass a vote in the Senate and be signed by President Obama—both extremely unlikely—Republicans “have urged House budget leaders to block funding for the District to enforce the reproductive discrimination law through the next federal spending bill.”

A church in Charlotte, North Carolina, got a surprise in one of its collections. The church runs a Sunday morning breakfast for homeless persons followed by a church service. When the collection counters went through the offering, they found an envelope. Inside the envelope was $0.18 and on the outside was written, “Please don’t be mad. I don’t have much. I’m homeless. God Bless,” reports ABC News.

“We were very touched by it,” said the pastor of the church. “I feel like he gave everything he had that morning.” The homeless man has asked to remain anonymous.

Heather Cook, the Episcopal bishop from Maryland who is facing manslaughter charges in the drunk-driving death of a bicyclist in December 2014, will no longer be “an ordained person in the Episcopal Church,” according to her diocese. “Cook left the crash scene and returned about 30 minutes later,” says Religion News Service of the December hit-and-run incident. Cook’s breathalyzer test registered a blood-alcohol level of 0.22, far exceeding the state’s legal limit of 0.08.

Do you have measures in place to hold your ministers and employees accountable? Our resource, Your Guide to Employee Handbooks, can help ensure your handbook keeps all parties accountable within a legal framework.

Two separate lawsuits filed against the archdiocese in Philadelphia have been settled out of court for undisclosed amounts, according to Philly.com. Each lawsuit alleged abuse by two separate priests during the 1990s. One abuser was removed from the priesthood in 1993 and the other was suspended from ministry duties in 2010. Neither have been charged with a crime due to the statute of limitations for abusers. However, both lawsuits were filed by the victims before the statute of limitations on reporting abuse had expired.

Our five-post ministry roundtable series covers child sexual abuse prevention and response. Our latest post is a good place to start.

A new lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of San Antonio and the Jesuit Order alleges that four victims were sexually molested by a priest at a parish in the diocese in the late 1960s, reports MySanAntonio.com. According to the suit, the archdiocese notified the abuser’s superiors of an allegation of child sexual abuse in 1968, no investigation occurred into the incident, and the abuser was allowed continued access to children.

After 18 years of being a minister at a New York church, a man was arrested on April 30 and charged with stealing thousands of dollars in this church's funds. The missing funds were discovered by the church board only after the accused had left his role at the church.

The accused has been charged with third-degree grand larceny (a felony), according to the Register-Star. “He stole money by paying off personal expenses, credit cards, etc., over a period of time,” said the local district attorney. The district attorney did not give an exact dollar amount of the estimated stolen funds but revealed that it was “many tens of thousands of dollars.”

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